Dystopia & Scale: Emmi Itäranta’s Memory of Water
Emmi Itäranta’s Memory of Water is set in a far future that, after centuries of global warming, feels almost pre-modern in many respects. In the Scandinavian village where 17-year-old Noria Kaitio lives, drinking water is rationed out in waterskins, but people still have personal electronic devices they can use to read and to communicate with each other. Adding to the time-out-of-time feel of the novel is Noria’s status as the daughter of the local tea master; as his only child, she’s been learning the rituals of the tea ceremony, even though it’s far from traditional for women to take on the position. The ceremonies are like an anchor to the past, something we can grab on to as recognizable (even if only in principle) in a strange new world. (Although the novel doesn’t explain how the Japanese tea ceremony came to be handed down through generations of a Finnish family, Itäranta did think this through, and has discussed it in interviews.)
As Noria’s father prepares her to inherit his role as tea master, he reveals the existence of a natural spring, hidden in the caves near their home. This water source needs to be kept secret from the New Qianese army that has conquered the Scandinavian Union, but that’s not the only emotional burden that it places on Noria. Itäranta pays just as much attention to her young protagonist’s more intimate crises, dovetailing them into the political dilemma in a way that fans of, say, The Handmaid’s Tale can well appreciate.
One thing that I’m learning to appreciate as I read around what we might call “dystopia†is that, although it’s set in worlds that have undergone big (literally cataclysmic) changes, the most successful stories work on a much smaller scale. Yes, the backstory of the disasters that shaped Noria’s world, or the world of Edan Lepucki’s California, is intriguing enough that we expect some details. Too much information, though, and a story risks veering into disaster porn, the bookish equivalent of special-effects explosions covering up a weak narrative.
That’s not the case here. Itäranta zooms in tightly on Noria and her immediate environment: her family, her family’s legacy, her best friend, her village. Beyond that, we know just enough to set the scene at first, then a little bit more to make the external threats to Noria credible. There is a mystery about the past that Noria uncovers, and you read because you want to learn what that’s about, but you read primarily because you want to see how Noria copes with the responsibilities that are thrust upon her.
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20 August 2014 | read this |
Read This: Unholy Night & Season for Surrender
As some longtime Beatrice readers may recall, once Thanksgiving’s over, I like to read Christmas stories. This year, after a recommendation by my friend Sarah, I decided I wanted to check out Theresa Romain’s Season for Surrender. I actually started with Romain’s first novel, Season for Temptation, which was put forward as a holiday-themed story—with the tag line “Mistletoe can lead to more than kissing…”—but it turns out that the Christmas element only takes up a few chapters in a story that spans months. That story, about a young aristocrat who arranges an engagement to a suitable lady only to realize that he’s attracted to her younger sister (and she to him, although of course he doesn’t know that for a good long while), has a lot to recommend it, although it’s a bit rough around the edges in a debut novel-ish sort of way. The second time around, Romain seems to feel a bit more confident, and it makes for a much more sustained pleasure.
Season for Surrender picks up just about where its predecessor left off: Louisa, the unsuccessful fiancée of the first novel, is looking for some excitement in her life and accepts an invitation to a ten-day holiday party at the estate of Alexander, Lord Xavier. She accidentally overhears a conversation between Xavier and her cousin and learns that she’s the subject of a wager between the two of them as to whether she can last ten days in the company of such a notorious rake. So she decides to turn the tables on them… Meanwhile, Xavier, who was portrayed as a bit of a dick in the first novel, is now shown to be a sensitive fellow, ill at ease with the role he has come to play in society, but unsure of how to reinvent himself—or whether anyone would take him seriously if he did.
The slow burn of Louisa and Alex’s relationship is handled quite well, and the firm boundaries of the holiday period and the country estate also work in the story’s favor. I liked that Romain didn’t lean as heavily on the “unconventional aunt” character as she did in Temptation; Lady Irving is a fun character, but a little of her can go a long way—and with two leads this strong, the supporting cast can be used less to supply “color” and more as interesting personalities in their own right (some, admittedly, more interesting than others). I would actually recommend starting with this novel, then circling back to its predecessor if you want to spend some more time in Romain’s world.
13 December 2012 | read this |
Our Endless and Proper Work is my new book with Belt Publishing about starting (and sticking to) a productive writing practice. 
